


I'm Glad You're Here

by AmongTheStars394



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Based on a Tumblr Post, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-02
Updated: 2014-03-02
Packaged: 2018-01-14 08:28:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1259686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmongTheStars394/pseuds/AmongTheStars394
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lestrade finds Sherlock, one night, who's overdosed--and a last conversation ensues, a conversation that is indeed, unforgettable. (And yes, this was inspired by a Tumblr post.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'm Glad You're Here

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Haven't posted in a while (not that anyone reads what I write, lol) but this bit of fun was inspired by [this Tumblr post.](http://mycroftholmes.tk/post/72402524341) Admittedly, I really enjoyed writing this (which sounds so horrible) and took a couple slight creative liberties. Anyway, I do hope you like it! :)

Sherlock Holmes would tell you that he was a consulting detective, whilst scoffing those cretins at Scotland Yard for ever, ever daring to dirty the title of “detective.” He’d tell you people were a bore, they were a chore, not enigmas. Oh, how he loved puzzles and enigmas, complex webs of mazes that’d connect and click into place as he turned them over in his, tight-lipped and taciturn. But people...no.

He’d never tell you how he’d look absentmindedly out of the Baker Street window, at the smooth black pavement half-lit by the morning sun, all those puzzles he so adored floating loosely through his mind, not connecting in the least. He’d never tell you that he was a half-forgotten being, and that that mattered to him. Very much so.

For Molly had found herself someone else and remained restrained in his presence, her lips pursed, her eyes darting, words at the edge of her teeth that she’d not speak. Lestrade-Geoff, Gavin, Gary or whatever it was-had busied himself especially, burying deeper and deeper into his Scotland Yard world. Mrs. Hudson was the way she always was.  And John...oh, John. Sherlock dared not think of John, who was tightly wrapped up  into his own personal life, his own happiness, with Mary Morstan, who still deserved him, and their tiny infant daughter-Priscilla, wasn’t that her name? At any rate, all of them would have his name in their mind, fleetingly, their finger poised over his name on their contacts list-but soon, it would all dissipate, become forgotten.

For John Watson, it had been an especially wonderful evening. A dinner with Mary that she’d prepared artfully, Priscilla smiling, laughing. Nothing bad at all.

Not so much for the half-forgotten consulting detective.

He couldn’t deal with it all anymore-being ignored, even though he was Sherlock Holmes and this pettiness was not in his nature, did not belong there. Yet he cared, and since he had a stash of heroin secretly stored away, well, he could whisk it all away. No one was ever there, not like they’d notice.

Needles out of the box in the cupboard...needle into his arm...yes...

****  
  


Greg Lestrade heaved a sigh of relief, for he was finally, _finally_ done with the Marie Welsh case. How long that had taken! Thankfully, this time, the murderer had not been acquitted, as he always was...

Sherlock-this case would have interested him somewhat. The key word was somewhat. For Sherlock, somewhat was never good enough-

Sherlock. Lestrade had forgotten about Sherlock amidst the flurry and hustle of the Marie Welsh case.  Sherlock had been there, shoved in the back of his mind, telling himself he’d remember...

But he hadn’t, and knowing Sherlock, that meant trouble...

Yet he was so tired, so very tired...Sherlock could wait...

He was nodding off when he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. And he would have disregarded it, except that it aggravated him especially so, today of all days. When he fished it it out of his pocket, he saw that it was Sherlock, so he picked it up.

"What do you want?" he asked gruffly.

It was a very frantic Mrs. Hudson who answered.  "It's Sherlock…I dunno what's wrong with him. I tried calling John but he wouldn't answer and-and-"

"Hold on a minute here. What exactly is wrong?" Lestrade's mind floated back to the summer, Sherlock begging him to come for it was an urgent matter-and it turned out to be nothing more important than a best man’s speech. But this...this was Mrs. Hudson, who yes, could get melodramatic at times, but still this sounded serious...

“Well...oh, dear, I don’t know, and I think I called the police but-”

“ _What?_ Why would you need to call the police?”

At this, Mrs. Hudson simply responded with a loud wail. A wail that stretched on for a bit, until Lestrade decided that he could not let time slink by any longer, and shut his phone off, trekked through the halls, tersely cutting off any confused “But...Lestrade, where’re you going now?” that arose.

Sherlock...what had he gotten himself now? Unpredictable, reckless Sherlock, left to his own devices for maybe months now, after John had left...Lestrade should have foreseen this.

_He’ll be fine, he’ll be fine..._ A half hearted, half-baked reassurance. With Sherlock, it would always be a half-hearted reassurance. Please, God, just let him be fine, he thought as he drove on, only partly paying attention to the damp roads.

He arrived at Baker Street with words clawing at his throat and concern invading his mind, banging on the door.

Lestrade did not bother responding to Mrs. Hudson’s tear-streaked face or sob-drenched ramblings; the only words that left his lips were a terse, “Where is he?” A command, not an inquiry. But he didn’t let Mrs. Hudson lead him; no, he ran to the living room, his lips clamped together.

A word escaped Sherlock’s mouth, a faint, weak word. He laid on the floor, limp, but still conscious-if you could qualify it as such.

“Oh, Sherlock, what did you do?” whispered Lestrade crouched by the sprawled figure that was Sherlock. A certain pallor to his skin, a sickly type, unusually sickly. And perhaps Lestrade could have been wrong, but he could have sworn those were tears on Sherlock’s cheeks.

“I was bored.” Not a faint trace of enthusiasm, or energy, or amusement-well, the Sherlock Holmes type anyway-tinged his voice.

“Oh, Sherlock..." Lestrade swallowed, knowing on the periphery of his mind what was to happen...but no. It wouldn’t it just wouldn’t. Sherlock Holmes had defied all odds, struck down the impossible. Sherlock Holmes could not die from a cause like this. “Why? You could have called one of us, for God’s sake.”

“Busy.” It was a single, weakly delivered word, and yet it carried so much accusation and hurt....too busy to respond, or check in, or remember. Too busy, as the consulting detective tried to reach them, feebly, too busy as  he cracked into pieces. Pieces that couldn’t be joined together, not now, not anymore.

“Listen, Sherlock-” said Lestrade faintly, fishing his phone out of his pocket. “I’m here now, aren’t I?” _Here too late._

“Yes. Yes. Missed you.”

Lestrade bit his lip, trying to make sense of these words. Because that was not a Sherlock-type thing to say--and he'd said it nonetheless. “I-I missed you too-listen, Sherlock, I’ll have to call the police-”

“No, no.”

“If you don’t want me to call them, then why did you do this at all?” It was a futile question, he knew it, but it was a question that still warranted an answer.

“I was bored, I told you.”

“Sherlock, I-we left you alone, and that’s why you did this, isn’t it?”

“Well, no,” said Sherlock, but they both knew that was not quite true.

“We did care-listen, like I said, I’m-I’m here now, right?” Lestrade watched the life drain away out of his friend, quicker and quicker, the lights dimming, and he did not hesitate in calling the police when-

“I’m glad you’re here, Greg.” It was a sentence given with a faint smile, a sentence delivered in a small gasp for breath.  

_He remembered._ Finally, he had remembered Lestrade’s name. But it was now, of all times, now when his friend was dying and would be soon nothing more than memory and a cold body. A last memory, Sherlock remembering Lestrade’s name-for once.

It is a last memory that still burns in Lestrade’s mind, even now, years later. And yet, even now, he still wishes he had uttered the words, “Yes, Sherlock, I’m glad you’re here too.”


End file.
